A: We owed [Giants owner] Horace Stoneham $600 apiece for playing golf at his course and we went to pay him at a party the night before the All-Star game at the St. Francis Hotel. He knew Willie Mays used to kill me, so he said, ‘If you get him out, you don’t owe me the money. If he gets a hit off you, it’s double.’ Mickey wakes me up the next morning – the headline said, ‘Spahn and Ford to start All-Star game.’ Mickey said, ‘There goes our money!’

Willie Mays hit two foul balls down the leftfield line 450 feet. I threw him a spitball that started at his stomach and broke down over the plate. Willie fell down; he thought the ball was gonna hit him. I go by Willie, and he’s still on the ground. He says, ‘What the hell is that SOB in center field clapping for?’ Mickey was running in clapping from center field.

Q: Funniest Yogi memory?

A: We were playing the White Sox. The first batter up was Luis Aparicio. The first pitch I throw he bunts and beats it out. Nellie Fox hit a double down the left-field line. I hit Minnie Minoso in the hip. Kluszewski hits a high fastball off the right-center field wall. All three runs score. Casey comes out to the mound, and Yogi runs out to meet us. Casey says to Yogi, ‘Does Ford have anything tonight?’ Yogi says, ‘How the hell do I know, I haven’t caught a pitch yet!’

Q: Saddest moment in baseball?

A: When we got in trouble in the Copacabana and Billy [Martin] got traded three days later to Kansas City.

Q: What made you, the Chairman of the Board, so clutch in October?

A: Everybody says I won the most World Series games, but I also lost the most (chuckle). I don’t know … I was very relaxed once the game started. I was under control. I could throw a curveball 2-0, 3-1, 3-2.

Q: If George Steinbrenner wasn’t a baseball owner, what would he be?

A: Probably a general in the army or something (laugh).

Q: If I was baseball commissioner, I would …

A: Go to the players union and make sure they go back and take care of the old-time ballplayers with their pensions.

Q: You got to know several presidents.

A: I liked Richard Nixon; I met him a couple of times. President Bush, the first one, I think he would be my favorite. He plays golf very fast (chuckle). I had met President Kennedy’s father also. We were playing up in Palm Beach against the Braves; I was in the locker room about the seventh inning and a Secret Service guy comes in and says, ‘Who are you?’ and flashes a badge. I said, ‘Whitey Ford.’ He said, ‘You’re just the guy I’m looking for.’ Joe Kennedy wanted Mickey, Yogi, Tony Kubek and I to come visit him in his house. We met him, shook hands – he couldn’t talk, he had just had a stroke.

I brought a dozen baseballs for him to get the president to sign. Sure enough, a month later, I get 12 baseballs signed by JFK – three for Tony, three for Mickey, three for Yogi and three for me. About 20 years later, I see a full-page ad in Sports Collectibles Digest – JFK baseball, $35,000. I couldn’t wait to call Yogi and Tony and Mickey. Not one of them had any baseballs left. The kids had played with them. My wife found one of them out in the attic. I still have it. The other 11 disappeared.

Q: One person in history you would like to meet?

A: Probably President Kennedy. I met his brother, his father, Ethel Kennedy, but I never met JFK.

Q: Who would you want to play you in “The Whitey Ford Story?”

A: Mickey was talking about this; we were in this restaurant and this movie-type guy said, ‘Mick, we oughta do a movie about you.’ Mickey picked this big, handsome guy to play him, and Paul Williams, a little short singer, was gonna play me, Joe Pesci was gonna play Billy and Danny DeVito was gonna play Yogi (laugh).

Q: What about your choice to play you?

A: James Caan.

Q: The last hitter you wanted to face in a clutch situation?

A: Ted Williams.

Q: The last pitcher you wanted to match up against in a clutch situation?

A: [Warren] Spahn and [Sandy] Koufax.

Q: Why did Casey call you his little banty rooster?

A: I think because he thought I was cocky for a 21-year-old in the World Series; I didn’t think I was like that. I was sorta quiet and not demonstrative. I didn’t walk off the mound shaking my fist like I see nowadays.

Q: He also called you and Mickey “Whiskey Slick.”

A: Casey used to have this expression, they were “Whiskey Slick,” – when they were drinking they were smart all of a sudden.

Q: Best Yankees teams?

A: ’50 and ’61.

Q: You don’t like talking about your mudball, ringball and buckleball.

A: That was at the end of my career when we weren’t winning any pennants; I was trying to hang on a little longer.

Q: The spitball?

A: I only threw them when there was an exhibition game.

Q: Who are some of the people you met at Toots Shor’s?

A: Jackie Gleason; John Wayne; Angie Dickinson; Don Ameche.

Q: What did (pitching coach) Johnny Sain mean to you?

A: He talked Ralph Houk into letting me pitch every fourth day, which helped me get in the Hall of Fame.

Q: Worst Yankees defeat?

A: I think the most embarrassing one was when we scored only four runs off the Dodgers when they swept us in ’63.

Q: You were on the mound when Jackie Robinson stole home; Yogi to this day swears he was out.

A: He was. We were on the Tim Russert show, and Phil Rizzuto comes on as a guest. He’s agreeing with Tim Russert: ‘I can see from shortstop Jackie Robinson was safe.’ A month later, Irv Noren sent me a picture from the upper deck of the whole infield. [Gil] McDougald was playing short that day.

Q: Best practical joke?

A: Rizzuto had a tiny little car, almost like a Volkswagen, and they lifted it up off the ground; they put something under the car so the wheels were a couple of inches off the ground, and he got in to start it, and the wheels would turn, but it wasn’t moving. Nobody would help him.

Q: The Mantle-Maris home run chase in ’61?

A: I enjoyed it; the writers left me alone (laugh). They weren’t very nice to Roger. Roger was really well-liked by the team; he just wasn’t the kind to go out and talk to the press. They were sorta favoring Mickey. I just felt sorry for Roger. I was glad he broke the record; I would have liked to see them both hit 61.

Q: Your thoughts on Joe Torre.

A: He reminds me an awful lot of Ralph Houk. He was my favorite manager. I liked Casey [Stengel], but Ralph played with us; he was a second-string catcher. He made everybody on the team feel so important.